Astronomers have revealed that their efforts to spot earth-like planets, also called as exo-planets, could be undermined by space dust and grit from asteroid collisions in addition to comet remnants. According to them, exozodiacal light, which is a light reflected from dust and grime of asteroids, could hide exo-planets and their alien suns.

The researchers put the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) located in Chile into use to detect the exozodical light from far away galaxies. Researchers compared the results with the data available from previous studies to produce a clearer, more complete picture. Habitable areas in nine alie...